Want to sell your Instagram photos? Now there's a site for that

Want to sell your Instagram photos? Now there’s a site for that

By Ryan Faughnder

June 25, 2012 12 AM PT

With users of Instagram uploading millions of photos per day, one entrepreneur is betting at least some of them are worth buying as works of art.

New Los Angeles startup Instaprints lets Instagram users sell their stuff as canvas-and-acrylic prints, greetings cards and posters.

Instaprints users can sign up for free and sell their wares at a base price -- $25 for an 8-by-8 canvas print, for instance -- and choose whatever markup they think their photos can fetch.

Instaprints founder Sean Broihier also founded the online art marketplace Fine Art America, which currently has 115,000 members.

Broihier said he was impressed by the volume and quality of content uploaded by many Instagram users, as well as the viral nature of the photos, which users post in rapid-fire fashion on social networks and social media outlets.

“I don’t think it’s a huge leap to say, ‘Hey, let’s make these photos real art you can hang up on your wall,’” Broihier said.

Instagram was founded in 2010 and now reportedly has over 50 million users.

Instaprints is hardly the first company to try to piggyback on Instagram’s success. Sites such as CanvasPop and Kanvess let users print out their own photos. But Instaprints is the first way for pros and amateurs to sell to others, Broihier said.

Granted, the demand for thousands of sepia-toned photos of crepes is likely pretty low. That’s why Broihier is making sure the quality images get top billing. The top rows of any given Instaprints page features the most artsy, well-done photos, he said.

“Hopefully it’ll discourage them from putting up a bunch of photos of themselves drinking a beer or doing a keg-stand,” Broihier said. “My coding is good enough that if we get a bunch of keg-stand photos, they’ll be pushed down to the bottom.”

Instagram was purchased by Facebook Inc. earlier this year for $1 billion.

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